PRO BONO IN THE NEWS: August 2017

Below you can find articles of interest to the pro bono community that have been published since our last edition. Click through to read any news article in full.

You can also follow the latest news in pro bono from Australia and around the world by following the Centre on Twitter: @AusPBC.

AUSTRALIA

Winners of the Australian Law Awards reign supremeLawyers Weekly – 4 September 2017
Michael Legg, UNSW academic and member of the Centre’s Board, is named Academic of the Year, while Arnold Bloch Leibler wins Pro Bono Program of the Year at the 2017 Lawyers Weekly Australian Law Awards.

UnAustralian, Minister Dutton? The government pushes lawyers to do pro bono workFinancial Review – 31 August 2017
Law firms providing legal services to government agencies performed more than half a million hours of pro bono work last year, with those wanting regular gigs pushed to target at least 35 hours per lawyer. The demands on firms sit awkwardly with Immigration Minister Peter Dutton’s implicit labelling this week of some lawyers doing free legal work for refugees as “unAustralian”. The Centre’s media release is quoted in this piece.

Lawyers representing asylum seekers are ‘un-Australian’: Peter DuttonSydney Morning Herald – 28 August 2017
Lawyers representing asylum seekers trying to stay in the country are “un-Australian”, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has declared. Mr Dutton said the government had been frustrated by its constitutional responsibilities to asylum seekers, and lashed out at lawyers acting on behalf of those in detention.

Conversations with corporate counsel: Why pro bono?Lawyers Weekly – 28 August 2017
In-house lawyers are a significant part of the legal landscape. Our conversations with corporate counsel have revealed some common themes. When it comes to pro bono, in-house corporate lawyers and their employers can both meaningfully contribute to, and greatly benefit from, doing pro bono. Gabriela Christian-Hare, our Head of Strategy & Policy, shares some of these insights in this article.

Community legal centres struggling to cope with rising demandSBS News – 21 August 2017
The National Association of Community Legal Centres (NACLC) says that rising demand and lack of resources means that CLCs have in the last year turned down close to 170,000 requests for legal assistance. That’s up 6% from the previous year.

Peter Dutton abandons detention centre secrecy rules amid High Court challengeSydney Morning Herald – 14 August 2017
Fitzroy Legal Service and not-for-profit Doctors4Refugees made a constitutional challenge to legislation that threatened detention centre workers with two years’ imprisonment if they spoke out about neglect or abuse. This month, the government put forward amendments to remove these provisions from the 2015 Australian Border Force Act.

US: McDermott Lawyers Help Uncover Hoover-Era ‘Sex Deviate’ FilesBloomberg – 24 August 2017
The US law firm’s pro bono team is working with the Mattachine Society of Washington, DC, to submit FOI requests to the FBI, regarding President Eisenhower’s 1953 executive order that allowed then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to conduct a “purge” of LGBT federal public servants.